was still living, shews us, more than a thousand Examples, the high Reputation this great Man had gained among his Contemporaries upon the Account of his Sincerity.
When such an inflexible Integrity is a little softened and qualified by the Rules of Conversation and Good-breeding, there is not a more shining Virtue in the whole Catalogue of Social Duties. A Man however ought to take great Care not to polish himself out of his Veracity, nor to refine his Behaviour to the Prejudice of his Virtue.
Subject is exquisitely treated in the most elegant Sermon of the great
British
Preacher
. I shall beg Leave to transcribe out of it two or three Sentences, as a proper Introduction to a very curious Letter, which I shall make the chief Entertainment of this Speculation.
'The old English Plainness and Sincerity, that generous Integrity of Nature, and Honesty of Disposition, which always argues true Greatness of Mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted Courage and Resolution, is in a great Measure lost among us.
'The Dialect of Conversation is now-a-days so swelled with Vanity and Compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of Expressions of Kindness and Respect, that if a Man that lived an Age or two ago should return into the World again, he would really want a Dictionary to help him to understand his own Language, and to know the true intrinsick Value of the Phrase in Fashion; and would hardly, at first, believe at what a low Rate the highest Strains and Expressions of Kindness imaginable do commonly pass in current Payment; and when he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he could bring himself with a good Countenance and a good Conscience, to converse with Men upon equal Terms and in their own Way.'
I have by me a Letter which I look upon as a great Curiosity, and which may serve as an Exemplification to the foregoing Passage, cited out of this most excellent Prelate. It is